Link Wray, "Rumble" (1958)
Wray's distorted guitar on his breakthrough foregrounded power chords ï¿½ï¿½" and feedback, paving the way for the Who, punk, and the White Stripes. It was also the only instrumental single ever banned from radio, due to its ominous tone and the title's use as a slang term for "gang fight."

Funkadelic, "Maggot Brain" (1971)
On the 10-minute opener of this motor-booty crew's album of the same name, Eddie Hazel delivers one of the most emotionally devastating guitar solos of all time. How'd he do it? According to legend, bandleader George Clinton told Hazel prior to recording to play as if he had just been informed that his mother had died ï¿½ï¿½" but then learned that it wasn't true.

Booker T. & the MG's, "Green Onions" (1962)
They served as the airtight house band for Stax Records, backing artists from Otis Redding to Wilson Pickett. But the MG's hit was their indelible signature, tossing off a blissful three minutes of Booker T. Jones' driving Hammond organ punctuated by guitarist Steve Cropper's Memphis-greasy Telecaster.

Edgar Winter, "Frankenstein" (1973)
Texas multi-instrumentalist Winter hit the top of Billboard's Hot 100 with this keytar-featuring single, one of the few instrumental rock songs to ever score that honor.

Van Halen, "Eruption" (1978)
Eddie Van Halen's epic solo from the group's 1978 debut features almost two solid minutes of dizzying shredding; it popularized the "tapping" style used on virtually every metal album throughout the 1980s.

Jeff Beck, "Beck's Bolero" (1967)
The British axe-man takes Ravel's "Bolero" as the inspiration for a three-minute psych blast, recorded in the late-'60s with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Keith Moon, and piano ace Nicky Hopkins.

Incredible Bongo Band, "Apache" (1972)
This funky 1972 oddity was rescued from the dollar bins by DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, who spotlighted the song's fabulously dramatic percussive breakdown ("Apache" later became one of the most-sampled pieces of music ever). No wonder it's been dubbed hip-hop's national anthem.